Lapid registers new party, 'Yesh Atid'

Former TV personality says party will provide voice for middle class, change Israel's priorities.

By LAHAV HARKOV
Yair Lapid 370 (photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Yair Lapid 370
(photo credit: Marc Israel Sellem)
Yair Lapid officially registered his new political party, Yesh Atid (“There is a Future”), on Sunday.
Two weeks after the party’s original name, Atid (“Future”), was rejected because an inactive Atid party exists, Lapid announced that registering the party is another step towards his goal of “gaining major and significant political power.”
Lapid, a former Channel 2 journalist, wrote in a letter to his supporters that his party will change the order of priorities and truly represent the middle class.
“We established ‘Yesh Atid’ because the Israeli middle class, the class that works and is productive, pays taxes and serves in the army, does not have a voice and no one protects its interests in the matters close to its heart: education, health, transportation, housing, fighting corruption and the cost of living,” Lapid wrote.
He repeated his campaign slogan “Where is the money?” and added that the money exists, but the wrong people spend it on the wrong things.
“The time has come to change this,” Lapid wrote.
A recent poll by Smith Research, sponsored by The Jerusalem Post, showed that Lapid would get 11 Knesset seats, about a third of what Likud, which is leading with 31, is expected to get.
Lapid has vowed that his party will join the next government, and expressed interest in serving as education minister, despite never finishing high school.